June, 1910.] 



514 



Live Stock. 



hardly be any difference. The extracted 

 honey of the local bee sells very readily 

 at Re, 1/- a bottle or more. Native 

 doctors prefer the meemessa honey to 

 any other in their medicines. The 

 absence of suitable honey plants is the 

 chief difficulty in the successful rearing 

 of introduced bees which, for this reason, 

 have to be artificially fed during the 

 greater part of the year. The intro- 

 duction of such plants is, therefore, one 

 of the ways in which the industry 

 could be fostered. The Ceylon Agri- 

 cultural Society has done 'something in 

 the direction by encouraging the grow- 

 ing of buck-wheat and introducing log- 

 wood. An effort should be made, if 

 possible, to select such plants as will 

 produce good fodder or other produce 

 and at the same time serve the purpose 

 of bee plants. 



Beyond material profit, the intelligent 

 bee-keeper is rewarded by the intellec- 

 tual pleasure he derives from the phe- 

 nomena of bee life, for on those who 

 keep bees the pursuit exercises a 

 fascination few persons can resist. Dis- 

 carding the fanciful writings on the 

 economy of the hive, there is still in- 

 finite interest to be found in it : — the 

 sanitary precautions, the foresight, the 

 division of labour, the courageous self- 

 sacrifice for the common good, the un- 

 tiring industry and vigilance of the 

 workers, the great regard towards the 

 mother queen (the ruling monarch), and 

 last but not least the extraordinary 

 unity. 



By the use of the Benton cage the 

 transport of queens by post, and by 

 means of a nucleus hive of small stocks, 

 is rendered possible. In this way queens 

 or stocks are supplied by apiarists who 

 make a special business of breeding. 



As a rule bees vary in appearance with 

 age — young bees are more hairy and when 

 they are just hatched their hair is so 

 light that they have a powdered appear- 

 ance. Old bees generally lose much of 

 their hair, and the abdomen may be 

 almost bare and shining. Very young 

 bees are slower in their movements 

 and cannot fly, so that if shaken on the 



ground they cannot rise again, and in 

 this way they often get lost. Young 

 bees are less likely to sting when han- 

 dled and they receive a strange queen or 

 workers readily where old bees would 

 destroy the former and enter into deadly 

 conflict with the latter. 



The number of bees in a hive differs 

 widely with the stock, some being better 

 than others ; and it varies with the season 

 and the prolificness of the queen. For 

 want of a uatural good supply or owing 

 to incessant rain, a weak stock may be 

 reduced to a few hundred bees ; a strong 

 stock at the height of the honey flow 

 may contain 50,000 or more. However, 

 the number of bees in a hive cannot 

 be ascertained until they are counted, 

 and no local bee-keeper appears to have 

 done so yet. Stocks of Apis indica ad- 

 mit of being made very strong by arti- 

 ficial feeding. The number of drones 

 may reach thousands if the bees are 

 left to themselves ; it varies with the 

 ago of the queen and should usually 

 be from a few hundreds up to a couple 

 of thousands during the hot season. 

 Expert opinion is that workers live only 

 seven or eight weeks in a moderate 

 working season and less when hard 

 working, those living through the in- 

 active season live longer than during a 

 honey flow. I have known workers to 

 live over five months in a queenless 

 colony. Naturally drones are hatched 

 during the swarming season and des- 

 troyed or worried out of the hive when 

 the swarming is at an end. The per- 

 formance of the sexual function causes 

 death of the individual drone. In a 

 queenless colony, however, drones are 

 tolerated all throughout. Observation 

 of the treatment of the drones affords 

 the bee-keeper valuable information as 

 to the condition of the colony and to 

 some extent the honey supply. Queens 

 normally live several years ; they have 

 be6n known to lay well up to four 

 or five years of age, and a queen is 

 supposed to be at her best in her 

 second year. 



A. P. GOONATILAKE. 

 Veyangoda, 11th February, 1910. 



